Executive Creative Director

IPSY•Santa Monica, CA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

IPSY is seeking an Executive Creative Director to serve as the creative strategy and vision lead for the company, owning how IPSY shows up visually, emotionally, and culturally across every touchpoint. This role is responsible for setting the creative vision and leading the creative strategy, while also managing and inspiring IPSY’s in-house creative team, which encompasses photography, graphic design, and creative strategy. The Executive Creative Director will be a trusted partner to executive leadership, including the CEO, helping to elevate the brand and cut through the noise in the beauty landscape. The ideal candidate is a strong people manager and leader first and foremost—someone who knows how to build high-performing creative teams, nurture talent, and create clarity, momentum, and accountability, while delivering exceptional creative output. This Executive Creative Director reports to the Chief Marketing Officer and is preferably based in Los Angeles, with a hybrid schedule of 2 days per week in our Santa Monica office.

Requirements

Creative Visionary & Strategist: A senior creative leader with a proven ability to define and lead creative strategy for a complex, consumer-facing brand.
Exceptional People Manager: Demonstrated success managing, mentoring, and scaling multidisciplinary creative teams; known for developing talent and building strong, healthy team cultures.
Hands-On Creative Leader: Comfortable setting direction while empowering teams across photography and graphic design to execute at the highest level.
Brand Identity Expert: Deep experience in brand stewardship, visual systems, and maintaining consistency across multiple platforms and consumer touchpoints.
Digital-First Mindset: A digital native who understands social, content performance, and modern storytelling formats.
Cross-Functional Leader: Strong collaborator who works seamlessly with marketing, product, growth, and executive stakeholders.
Innovative & Curious: Energized by change and open to experimentation, new ideas, and evolving creative tools.
Executive Presence: Confident communicator with the ability to influence and build strong relationships at the executive level.

Nice To Haves

Industry Experience (Nice to Have): Background in beauty, wellness, fashion, or lifestyle brands is a plus, but not required.

Responsibilities

Lead Creative Strategy & Vision: Own and articulate IPSY’s creative vision and strategic direction, ensuring all creative work ladders up to a clear, inspiring, and differentiated brand POV.
Manage & Inspire the Creative Team: Directly lead a multidisciplinary in-house team across photography, graphic design, and creative strategy, fostering a culture of collaboration, excellence, and innovation.
Serve as Brand Steward: Oversee IPSY’s brand identity and ensure cohesive visual and tonal expression across all channels, including social, video, packaging, site, influencer content, and lifecycle marketing.
Unify Brand Expression Across Plans: Create a consistent brand system while developing distinct creative personalities for IPSY’s Original, Extra, and Ultimate plans under a single brand umbrella.
Modernize Storytelling: Drive the development of thumb-stopping, community-driven creative that authentically reflects Gen Z and Millennial beauty culture.
Partner Cross-Functionally: Work closely with Marketing, Growth, Product, Merchandising, and Brand Partnerships to ensure creative strategy supports business objectives including acquisition, engagement, and retention.
Elevate Creative Operations: Implement strong processes for briefing, feedback, and execution that enable the team to deliver world-class work efficiently and at scale.
Champion Innovation: Thoughtfully adopt new tools, workflows, and emerging technologies to enhance creative quality, speed, and impact—without losing the human creative spark.
Build Executive Trust: Act as a key creative partner to the CMO, CEO, and executive leadership team, clearly communicating creative strategy, rationale, and results.